


eye of the beholder

by cjr09



Category: Realm of Lyth
Genre: anyway!! dash tasks for the 9-2 task, i didnt actually like read these over and edit them like i said i would lmao, most of em arent tho, uhhh fuck tags, uhhhh some of these are angsty, which was a TON of fun i really enjoyed this one!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 08:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15991790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjr09/pseuds/cjr09
Summary: 'Beauty' is a weird term. It means a lot of things to a lot of different people.(Snapshots of memories and feelings, pertaining to beauty.)1) Fluff2) Charr3) Leaff4) Saltt5) Pen





	1. Fluff

Fluff wasn’t really prepared for his journey when he first started it, he knows. He’s not really prepared for it now; there’s so much more danger out there in the world than he thought. So much more _hurt_ than he thought. He’s met more sorrow than he could’ve ever expected.

(A Chukiuka with scarred fists and dead eyes, who’d seen death—who’d _been_ dead, who’d never been alive. A Haenym who’s complete faith in her religion faded more with each passing day, who’s unfaltering belief in kindness dulled out with each new tragedy they witness, for each person she can’t help. A Siirco who’s run and run and never stopped running, with grand ideas and inventions that she bites back before she shares, always anxious, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. An Igalyph with a gaping hole in their chest and their heart and their memory and bleeding love and loss all over the floor and at a loss with how to deal with it.)

If he knew going into it—Fluff honestly doesn’t know whether he’d be willing to start the journey over again, knowing what he’d see, who he’d meet. If he could face the world without the same kind of oblivious optimism as he started.

But then he meets someone new, sees a new area—invents a new device, collaborates with Saltt on a new potion, makes Leaff laugh, makes Charr crack a smile.

It’s a big, big world. Bigger than he could have ever imagined, full of more strife than he ever would have thought. There’s a lot of hurt, dotted across the map like inkstains, dark and messy.

Sometimes he can’t help everyone; sometimes he can’t help even one person. Sometimes there are bad days.

There are good ones too, though.

It’s a big, big world. There are places where the trees scrape the clouds and places where not even weeds can grow. There are places that have never seen the sun and places defined by its unwavering heat. There are people defined by those things, too.

There are bad days, but there are good ones. Fluff can still smile and laugh and have fun; he can make others do the same, too, if he tries hard enough. It’s worth it to turn a bad day around, a frown upside-down.

It’s a big, big world. Fluff’s never stopped believing that it’s a beautiful one, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so so glad these dash tasks don't have to be in chronological order ashoihdisauasdh
> 
> fluff!!!!! he's a good innocent boi who's maybe a little less oblivious than he was... for better or worse
> 
> he still believes in people, though, and that's what counts!
> 
> Towards the 'end' of Fluff's arc; honestly Fluff's character is one of the ones I really don't have much of a hndle for! He's a little more tired, a little less loud, but he's still gonna keep that brightness and fun, despite everything!
> 
> 402 words i struggled with this tbh fluff just... thinks everythings great and also i cant describe scenery for SHIT so


	2. Charr

Charr's never been one to call anything 'beautiful'.

Maybe it's a side effect of growing up in the sands of Hadal- everything's just different shades of brown and red. The only splashes of color in Charr's life growing up came from the people who grew up around him, without him, and he tries not to think about them too much.

The closest he's probably ever gotten to calling something beautiful is setting sight on an oasis after weeks traveling the sands. Water in the desert is enough of a blessing to make a grown lyth cry.

He feels a little bit like that now, though.

They’re somewhere in between Mausolia and Hadal—whoever said cartographer lyths couldn’t get lost was a filthy, filthy liar— and despite the somber quiet that the lands are known for Charr’s traveling party is filled with life and laughter.

Charr’s traveling at the back of the pack, as per normal, keeping a careful eye on their surroundings and the other on his companions’ antics. Saltt has a jar in her hands and is shaking it wildly; only Leaff seems to have the presence of mind to stay back in case the Siirco’s latest concoction explodes like the rest of them tend to. Fluff shoves his face right up against the glass, eyes wide as the liquid inside begins to glow and turn colors, painting the clouds above his head in pastel rainbow. It doesn’t explode, and Charr swallows against the ball of concern turned to relief in his throat.

The air is thick and humid with fog, chilly enough to make everyone pull their traveling cloaks just a bit tighter around them, but he still feels like a parched man in the desert, laid bare under the burning eye of the sun. His tongue sticks in his mouth and his skin itches like its full of sand-ants, trying to burrow under his fur and into his bones.

He feels like a dying man stumbling across an oasis, shocked, distrustful, hoping. Charr’s dove into the water only to find out it was a mirage one too many times to dive in.

But Charr’s vision doesn’t waver. Saltt’s laughter never turns to sneers, Fluff never touches him to hurt, Leaff’s eyes are no less kind looking at him than they are at anyone else. They’re solid, real, _there._

Charr can’t seem to shake them, either. Even his sharpest barbs, best arguments, no matter how many times he says he’d be better off travelling alone they don’t leave him and he can’t make himself leave them, either.

Charr still wouldn’t call them _beautiful--_ he could, actually, but that’s a terrible, awful line of thought that if he goes down _will_ end badly, so he won’t—but they’re a constant. There, smiling and laughing and friendly, and Charr’s walls have always been as easy to crumble as the face of the canyon after rain. He’s been all over the map at this point, seen some of the highs and lows of the world; there’s a hundred, a thousand more things he’d call beautiful before he’d ever think to slap the label across the ragtag group he’s gotten stuck with.

But still, this—acquaintanceship, traveling group, friendship, ~~family~~ —that he’s stumbled across, tumbled into without realizing, without thinking, just might be the prettiest thing he’s ever come across.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charr! This one was actually the one I wrote first- and probs the one i had the most fun with! I'm REALLY lovin Charr's character so far, and I'm really looking forward to exploring his character in more detail when i finally start the travel series asdgaahkasgadshsdh
> 
> anyway charr's a chaotic poly/pan disaster with trust issues
> 
> Probs... mid/endstory? There's no true "end" to the travel series but this is leaning towards the mid-end of Charr's big arc thus far; at least the first major character change and all that jazz
> 
> 558 words for this one! still dont think word count matters bUT for the sake of the 300 minimum i will post them all


	3. Leaff

Leaff’s religion has an odd stance on beauty.

It speaks of the beauty of the world; of _finding_ that beauty, in the trunk of the massive tree that covers Oleande-Niarine to a sprout on the side of the road. Beauty in others, where applicable—beauty of the soul, the heart, the work they do, if not necessarily in appearance.

Leaff’s starting to understand that there’s so much more her teachings don’t cover than they do.

They don’t talk about ugliness; they don’t talk about a Lyth sneering as they cut down another, a mothers’ tears as sickness takes her child from them. Leaff’s never been taught what to do in the face of cruelty, when an ugly wound tears across ones’ chest and their insides spill across the road, in both a metaphorical and literal sense.

A prayer means nothing to a sword wound. A sermon is nothing in the face of an illness sweeping a town. How does one tell a husband that their partner’s death was planned? That their child’s death was inevitable, the will of the gods?

(What kind of gods would let such suffering happen, anyway?)

Beauty in life, ugliness in death. In hardship, strife, suffering.

Leaff, privately, thinks it’s hypocrisy. She thinks this like a child thinks about stealing for the first time, like a babe thinking their first unkind thought. Her face burns with shame to so much as think it but she can’t _not_ think it—why do her teachings only tell her what to do when things are safe, when everything is okay? Why does she have to recite _‘the gods love you’_ to a dying child, forsaken?

No wonder so many people spurn her gods, when they won’t help when they’re asked. It’s easy to have faith when things are easy but when things get rough, when the world gets ugly—how is she supposed to believe?

No matter how many people Leaff can’t save, no matter how many times her own and others blood spills across the gravel; the sun rises. The plants grow and die and no matter how hard Leaff tries the days keep changing, the world keeps turning, time slows for no one. It doesn’t feel like a blessing, and it’s definitely not beautiful.

Leaff can still find the beauty in life, in love, in laughter. A Lyth’s smile is he most beautiful thing in the world, to her, fleeting but meaningful. A second of happiness is better than a lifetime of sadness.

Leaff—Leaff knows beauty, can deal with it, can preach about it with the best of them.

It’s ugliness she’s still learning to deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leaff!!!!! this ones defo more angsty than the others... probs centers about midpoint in her story?
> 
> she's conflicted about her religion and if faith really does mean so much in the grand scheme of things, if there even is a grand scheme
> 
> more of a commentary on beauty itself? this one probs... is the one that breaks the rules the most ngl
> 
> this one's 441 words!


	4. Saltt

Siirco’s are well traveled as a species but Saltt is an exception to many rules and assumptions.

Cetaceta is a well-revered capital, full of knowledge and history; it’s full of ideas, colors, theories.

Saltt’s always been more of the type to test the hypothesis than just think about it, which doesn’t earn her a lot of admirers. Science in practice tends to be either very boring or very explosive without much in-between. But it’s fine, because Saltt’s never been the type to care too much what others think about her, and if she keeps telling herself that, she’ll believe it, someday. Saltt’s always put more stock in action than words, and Lyths are just _full_ of words for Cetaceta.

People are real fond of calling the capital beautiful; the ocean, the fish, the sun on the waves, the coral and seaglass and carefully carved and preserved ruins are all gorgeous in the eyes of the land-dwelling species, a point of pride and marvel for the Siircos who live there.

The most gorgeous city in all of Lyth, they say. The best views, the most knowledge, the biggest and brightest.

Saltt doesn’t believe it.

Maybe there’s something visually appealing about Cetaceta—she can certainly appreciate the craftmanship in the architecture, the care that went into the colors of the glass, shaping it just so.

It’s a place full of knowledge but it feels _stagnant,_ like it’s been frozen in the ocean’s currents. That, every Siirco knows, is a death sentence; towns that don’t move get swallowed by the slow crawl of the planet’s movement, the great shifting of the continents themselves. Stop moving and you’re easy prey, bound to drown without water over your gills. Stop moving, and the ocean’ll eat you alive.

(The sea loves them: she _does,_ but some days their great mother knows neither mercy nor science.)

Beauty is adaptation; it’s what Siirco are known for, what they’re meant to do, but in the face of all this _beauty_ they’ve lost sight of that. Progress put on hold for the sake of a pretty picture.

But the _land—_ the land is truly something spectacular. The ocean is ever changing, ever shifting, but so is the land; forests grow and fall in weeks, natural disasters rage over the sky and earth on a near constant basis; fires rage and winds roar and it’s a constant cycle of evolution, adaptation, keeping ahead of the game.

Now _that--_ change, expansion, an ever-changing mosaic _she_ gets to put together—that’s beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i actually wrote this one last in the order of how these went but i want the FPCs to stay together so its chap 4
> 
> Saltt's character changed a LOT from the original i was going for.... now she's an alchemist w/ a penchant for explosions and lives up to her name
> 
> i actually think i had the most fun with this chapter though! the lore tori gave me for Cetaceta played right into my gay little hands and it made me super happy; Cetaceta's the most beautiful city in all of Lyth, according to the lore, but defo not according to Saltt's character!
> 
> Chonologically, this is at or just before the start of Saltt's journey.
> 
> 419 words for Saltt! I'm really looking forward to writing more for her tbh I need to nail her an Leaff's character down more and then I'll have SOOOO much fun


	5. Pen

Pen’s not sure they’ve ever known what beauty is.

Pen spent most of their life underground, with flickering candlelight as their only guide- the world used to be a five foot circle, dimly lit in shades of orange. The whole world was the pages of books before them, ink on paper.

If it was wider—well. They don’t remember ever looking up.

Then they _remember._ For the first time, they _remember._

Pen on paper. Worlds bound to paper, colors and ideas and ideals wrapped up together. Bits and pieces of people, characters, friends, enemies, lovers, preserved forever, shared with everyone.

It’s a flash memory, over as soon as it starts. But it’s a start; a start to a story, the answer to a question they didn’t know they’ve been waiting to ask.

A start to a story. They used to know this, they think: ideas, _inspiration._

So, they go. They chase the threads of story out of the tunnels and into the sun, and—

It’s mostly just really, really bright. It’s weird and hot and Pen can’t see for a long time after, and when they can lights dance in front of their eyes like Whirs.

The whole world, waiting. It looks kind of like how Pen had imagined, from the few books and pictures they’ve managed to get their hands on, from second-hand stories Pen had overheard but forgotten almost immediately after.

Pen doesn’t think they have high standards for beauty or anything, but they don’t really have any standards at all, which is probably the problem. Lack of knowledge accounts for lack of thought, opinion, and Pen’s always been bad at having opinions.

Their memory goes in and out, as it always does, but they etch their memory into their arms with shaking hands. The language changes every time, but the meaning doesn’t, and their written language starts to look more similar every time they have to relearn it. Muscle memory, for when their true memory fails.

 _‘YOU WANT TO WRITE THE WORLD’_ , written in a thousand different languages. A single memory preserved a thousand times over.

Write. Remember. _Know._

They still don’t have much of a concept of beauty—the world is big, and varied, and what Pen knows others find beautiful they don’t really know what to think of. The sunset over the ocean, the stars hidden behind the clouds, the sun over a field of crops.

Pen doesn’t know what _beauty_ is but they hold these images close, carve them into paper with shaky hands like that could imprint it into their memory. They don’t know it to be true themselves but they _want_ to think that the world was beautiful, to find that in the people they meet and in the stories they write. They want to present the world in a good way; a happy way, as a good place to be if not always a great place to be.

They want to find themselves in those pages, someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok this one went off the rails a lil
> 
> pens... an odd character. theyre real friendly but they forget how to read pretty constantly and don't know how to maintain actual friendships
> 
> also they don't have standards so they have NO idea what people would consider beautiful, so they kinda compare it to what they think the emotion behind beauty is; similar to how they feel about a good story!
> 
> i... need to write more on Pen their story's kinda everywhere but also i swear to god theyre not an angsty character theyre kinda dumb and sometimes bad thigns happen but theyre not angsty i sWEAR
> 
> This is towards the beginning of Pen's story? it's a little jumpy on timeline so im not very happy with it but i need the practice for Pen so here it be
> 
> this one's 496 words! This one's probs the one most likely to get raked through with ye olde red pen and redone, but i'll throw an update in that case!


End file.
